How to Write a Review on Steam

Posted on October 6, 2022

If you’ve found a game you love (or hate) on Steam, you can leave a review for others to hear your feedback. This guide explains how.

Steam is a gaming platform that has something for everyone. It has the biggest budget AAA games to the smallest indie pleasures, from 100+ hour epics to 2-hour mini-games.

If you find a game you love (or love to hate) on Steam, it’s a good idea to leave a review. Reviews are a good way to provide feedback to developers. They’re also a good way to show to other Steam users that a game is worth buying (or worth avoiding).

If you’re unsure how to write a review on Steam, follow the guide below.

Guidelines for Steam Reviews

Before you write a Steam review, you’ll need to be aware of some of the guidelines to follow. These include:

Own the game on Steam. It’s an obvious one, but you’ll need to own the game you’re looking to review on Steam. This is to avoid the possibility of abusing the system.
Don’t become abusive. Steam reviews should be subjective, but you shouldn’t be insulting, abusive, or argumentative about anyone. You can be critical without falling into the trap of abuse. This includes any attempt to bypass Steam’s word filters for abusive words.
Avoid posting personal information. Don’t post any personal information about yourself or anyone else, including names, addresses, etc.
Offer detail. A one-word review isn’t helpful. Why do you like or don’t like a game? You should add examples and context to your review to make it useful for others. You should also identify whether or not you’d recommend the game or not.
Disclose any relationship with the developer or publisher. If you’re paid to write a review or if you’ve reviewed a game for free, you’ll need to make this clear in your review. Otherwise, you’ll fall foul of Steam’s disclosure policy.

At best, failing to remember these points will result in a poor quality review. However, if you’re abusive or don’t disclose any commercial relationship, your review might be removed.

Worse still, you may find that you’re banned from Steam—be warned!

How to Write a Steam Review

You can write a Steam review for any game that you’ve purchased on Steam. This is possible via the Steam store page for that game.

You can use the Steam client or website to do this—the steps will be the same for both.

To write a Steam review:

Open the Steam website or Steam client and sign in.
Press the Store button on the menu at the top.
Locate the game you want to review in the store.
On the game’s store page, you’ll see a Write a review box below the splash image and information if you own the game.
In the review box, write up your review. You can use markup formatting to help emphasize certain words—click the Formatting help link to help you do this.
You can set your review to be made public for everyone to see or only visible to friends. Select this from the Visibility drop-down menu.
Select the language you’re using for your review from the Language drop-down menu.
If you want to allow others to comment on your review, check the Allow Comments checkbox (or leave it unchecked).
If you received the game for free, make sure to click the Check this box if you received this product for free checkbox. Make sure to write in the box above if you were paid to write the review or have any other existing relationship with the game publisher or developer.
Click Yes or No to tell others whether or not you recommend the game.
Check your review to make sure that it doesn’t fall foul of Steam’s review guidelines.
When you’re ready to publish, press the Post review button.

Your Steam review will usually appear immediately (or at least very quickly). Reviews will often receive a quick check by an automated bot system before it becomes publicly available.

However, Steam reserves the right to further restrict or otherwise moderate reviews before they appear publicly. If you’ve used abusive language or fallen foul of Steam’s review policy, your review probably won’t reach the public eye.

How to Edit a Steam Review

You can change a review you’ve previously published if you’ve changed your mind about something you’ve said. It’s also possible to change your recommendation from no to yes (or yes to no).

To change a Steam review:

Open the Steam client or website and sign in.
Hover over your username at the top and select Profile.
On the right, select Reviews.
A list of reviews you’ve submitted previously will appear here. To edit a review, select it from the list.
On the game’s review page, press the Edit Review button on the right.
Make changes to your review (as required) then press Save Changes to update it.

Steam will check your review using its automated content checker. If it remains abuse free, the updated review will become public soon after.

If you want to delete the review entirely, press Delete Review and confirm your choice.

Enjoying Your Steam Library

Using the steps above, you can quickly write a review on Steam. If a game is really good (or really bad), make sure to publish a review so that others can make the right decision before buying or playing it.

Building a huge Steam library? You might want to use Steam categories to make it easier to sort them. If you’re downloading a new Steam game, don’t forget to increase your Steam download speeds to make the process quicker.

Getting sick of Steam single player games? You can always add your friends on Steam to play with others.